398

APPARITION WHICH APPEARED

rating influence, may gradually change the character and the condition of the criminal; and I shall not be deterred from bringing forward an example, in illustration, by the fear of being charged with Roman Catholic leanings. Eclecticism is true philosophy.

The example to which I refer is one adduced and vouched for by Dr. Kerner, and to which, in part, he could testify from personal observation. It is the history of the same apparition, already briefly alluded to,* as one, the appearance of which to Madame Hauffe was uniformly heralded by knockings, or rappings, audible to all. I entitle it

THE CHILD'S BONES FOUND.

The apparition first presented itself to Madame Hauffe during the winter of 1824-25, one morning at nine o'clock, while she was at her devotions. It was that of a swarthy man, of small stature, his head somewhat drooping, his countenance wrinkled as with age, clad in a dark monk's frock. He looked hard at her, in silence. She experienced a shuddering sensation as she returned his gaze, and hastily left the room.

The next day, and almost daily during an entire year, the figure returned, usually appearing at seven o'clock in the evening, which was Madame Hauffe's wonted hour of prayer. On his second appearance he spoke to her, saying he had come to her for comfort and instruction. "Treat me as a child," he said, "and teach me religion." With especial entreaty, he begged of her that she would pray with him. Subsequently he confessed to her that he had the burden of a murder and of other grievous sins on his soul; that he had wandered

* See Book III. chap. 2, "The Seeress of Prevorst." The circumstances, as already stated, occurred near Löwenstein, in the kingdom of Wurtemberg. Dr. Kerner and the seeress and her family were Protestants.

TO THE SEERESS OF PREVORST.

399

restlessly for long years, and had never yet been able to address himself to prayer.

She complied with his request; and from time to time throughout the long period that he continued to appear to her she instructed him in religious matters, and he joined with her in her devotions.

One evening, at the usual hour, there appeared with him the figure of a woman, tall and meager, bearing in her arms a child that seemed to have just died. She kneeled down with him, and prayed also. This female figure had once before appeared to the seeress; and her coming was usually preceded by sounds similar to those obtained from a steel triangle.

Sometimes she saw the man's figure during her walks abroad. It seemed to glide before her. On one occasion she had been on a visit to Gronau with her parents and her brothers and sisters; and ere she reached home the clock struck seven. Of a sudden she began to run; and when they hastened after her to inquire the cause, she exclaimed, "The spirit is gliding before and entreating my prayers." As they passed hastily along, the family distinctly heard a clapping, as of hands, seeming to come from the air before them; sometimes it was a knocking as on the walls of the houses which they happened to pass. When they reached home, a clapping of hands sounded before them as they ascended the stairs. The seeress hastened to her chamber; and there, as if on bended knees, the spirit prayed with her as usual.

The longer she conversed with him, and the oftener he came for prayer, the lighter and more cheerful and friendly did his countenance become. When their devotions were over, he was wont to say, "Now the sun rises!" or, "Now I feel the sun shining within me!"

One day she asked him whether he could hear other persons speak as well as herself. "I can hear them

400

THE BLACK TERRIER.

through you," was his reply. "How so?" she inquired. And he answered, "Because when you hear others speak you think of what you hear; and I can read your thoughts."

It was observed that, as often as this spirit appeared, a black terrier that was kept in the house seemed to be sensible of its presence; for no sooner was the figure perceptible to the seeress than the dog ran, as if for protection, to some one present, often howling loudly; and after his first sight of it he would never remain alone of nights.

One night this apparition presented itself to Madame Hauffe and said, "I shall not come to you for a week; for your guardian spirit is occupied elsewhere. Something important is about to happen in your family: you will hear of it next Wednesday."

This was repeated by Madame Hauffe to her family the next morning. Wednesday came, and with it a letter informing them that the seeress's grandfather, of whose illness they had not even been previously informed, was dead. The apparition did not show itself again till the end of the week.

The "guardian spirit" spoken of by the apparition frequently appeared to the seeress, in the form of her grandmother, the deceased wife of him who had just died, and alleged that it was her grandmother's spirit, and that it constantly watched over her. When the spirit of the self-confessed murderer reappeared, after the intermission of a week, she asked him why her guardian spirit had deserted her in these last days. To which he replied, "Because she was occupied by the dying-bed of the recently deceased." He added, "I have advanced so far that I saw the spirit of your relative soon after his death enter a beautiful valley. I shall soon be allowed to enter it myself."

Madame Hauffe's mother never saw the apparition,

THE FOREST-RANGER.

401

nor did her sister. But both, at the times when the spirit appeared to the seeress, frequently felt the sensation as of a breeze blowing upon them.

A friend of the family, a certain forest-ranger, named Böheim, would not believe in the apparition, and wished to be present with Madame Hauffe at the usual hour when it came. He and she were alone in the room. When a few minutes had elapsed, they heard the customary rappings, and, shortly after, the sound as of a body falling. They entered, and found Böheim in a swoon on the floor When he recovered, he told them that, soon after the rappings commenced, there formed itself, in the corner against the wall, a gray cloud; that this cloud gradually approached the seeress and himself; and when it came quite near it assumed human form. It was between him and the door, so as, apparently, to bar egress. He had returned to consciousness when aid arrived, and he was astonished to see persons pass through the figure without seeming to notice it.

At the expiration of about a year from the time of its first appearance,—namely, on the evening of the 5th of January, 1826,-the spirit said to the seeress, "I shall soon leave you altogether." And he thanked her for all the aid and instruction she had given him, and for her prayers. The next day (January 6, the day her child was christened) he appeared to her for the last time. A servant-girl who was with the seeress at the moment saw and heard (to her astonishment) the door open and close; but it was the seeress alone who saw the apparition enter; and she said nothing to the girl about it.

Afterward, at the christening, Madame Hauffe's father distinctly perceived the same figure, looking bright and pleasant. And going presently into an ante-chamber, he also saw the apparition of the tall, thin, melancholy woman, with the child on her arm. After this day neither of the figures ever appeared to the seeress.

402

THE BONES FOUND.

But the fact most strikingly corroborative of all remains to be told. At the instigation of the seeress, they dug, at a spot designated by her, in the yard back of the house, near the kitchen, and there, at a considerable depth, they found the skeleton and other remains of a small child.*

A single narrative is insufficient proof of a novel theory; and by many the theory will be deemed novel which assumes that the hope of improvement dies not with the body, that beyond the tomb, as on this side of it, progress is the great ruling principle, and that not only may we occasionally receive communications from the denizens of another world, but, under certain circumstances, may sometimes impart to them comfort and instruction in return.

I do not find, however, either from analogy, in Scripture, or elsewhere, any presumptive evidence going to disprove such a hypothesis.† The narrative, so far as it goes, sustains it. All that can be said is, that other coinciding proofs are needed before it can be rationally alleged that

"Die Seherin von Prevorst," by Justinus Kerner, 4th edition, Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1846, pp. 367 to 374.

† In a subsequent chapter (on the Change at Death) I shall have occasion to speak of the doctrine-vaguely conceived by the ancients, adopted in somewhat more definite form by the Jews, and universally received by early Christians of what is commonly called a mediate state after death,—a state where instruction may still be received, where repentance may still do its work, and where the errors of the present life may be corrected in a life to

come.

Several of the early Christian Fathers held to the opinion that the gospel was preached, both by Christ and his apostles, to the dead as well as to the living: among them, Origen and Clement of Alexandria. The latter exclaims, "What! do not the Scriptures manifest that the Lord preached the gospel to those who perished in the deluge, or rather to such as had been bound, and to those in prison and in custody? It has been shown to me that the apostles, in imitation of the Lord, preached the gospel to those in Hades."-Quoted by Sears, " Foregleams of Immortality," p. 264.